Malloy Cracks Under Pressure Of Failed Deals

July 03, 2011|Kevin Rennie, NOW YOU KNOW

Welcome to Hugo Chavez's Connecticut. Last week it felt like the ailing Venezuelan dictator had become the model for some powerful state leaders who were thwarted by state employees on a concessions deal negotiated in secret by Malloy administration officials and leaders of a coalition of unions.

The rules for ratification were clear. A majority of the members of 14 of the 15 unions had to approve the deal, and those 14 had to represent at least 80 percent of the state's 45,000 unionized employees. Those rules, long in place, ensure that there is indeed solidarity among workers on major decisions.

Just as state legislators guard mileage reimbursements to lard their pensions, state employees keep a close eye on their health and retirement benefits. Changes were always going to require traversing a minefield of suspicion and apprehension. The Malloy administration and union leaders viewed the process as political, united in their desire to promote the prospects of the governor. Employees, many of them in blue collar, clerical and grim law enforcement jobs, see the changes as personal and care not a whit about the choleric Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The extended vote by union members was preceded by Malloy's announcement that he had, abracadabra, found $400 million to bridge the gap between the union deal and the original $2 billion goal. Malloy scored a devastating "own goal," shredding the fierce urgency of shared sacrifice, when he announced he'd spend nearly $1 billion on the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Here some class condescension came into play. While telling clerical workers and prison guards their wages would have to be frozen for two years, pension rules changed and healthcare benefits altered, Malloy was handing the high-paid swells in academia and medicine a fat check and pie-in-the-sky promises of tens of thousands of new jobs in 25 years. Their stake in the solidarity of surrendering for the common good evaporated. For this, the working man and woman give up a cost of living adjustment?

Four unions rejected the deal, with 57 percent of all members voting yes and 43 percent no. Under the rules, repeated throughout the process, the deal is rejected. Union leaders refuse to acknowledge this — and last Monday they postponed indefinitely a decision to formally reject the agreement based on their members' votes. There is a growing suspicion that they are conniving to find a way to ram through the rejected deal to passage. This is a dangerous moment for the rule of law in Connecticut. Renegotiate and vote again, but do not adopt the methods of a banana republic.

The growing conspiracy to refuse to acknowledge the rules was joined, incredibly, by the new president of the University of Connecticut, Susan Herbst. She joined in a statement declaring that the deal has not been rejected, abandoning intellectual integrity for political expediency. What a disappointing introduction.

No one was angrier than Malloy. His administration's responses have veered along the narrow spectrum from chaotic to incoherent, always peppered with resentment of dissent. His top aides struggled to explain how many state employees would be laid off if the agreement failed. The numbers went from 4,500 to 7,500, rested on 5,500 for a couple of days and then grew to 6,500 as last week ended.

Malloy began to look incompetent and small as he faced a setback he helped create. He lashed out at snowplow drivers, last winter's heroes, by threatening to privatize their jobs. The Dear Leader was joined by his Dear Lieutenant Leader, Nancy Wyman, as he unveiled plans to curtail some collective bargaining issues. In the spring, Malloy attended a union rally in Hartford protesting legislation in Wisconsin changing some of that state's collective bargaining laws. He branded them un-American, but this week they won his quixotic favor as he flailed for targets to punish.

Malloy's unsteady performance under pressure is a disappointing surprise. We mistook empty bravado for confidence. He may be no more than a bully. By the week's end, he looked like a petulant schemer, divorced from the common good but wedded to retribution. For the first time he seemed small, made rancid by the challenges of the job.

Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com.